Email marketing can support crazy ROI. Some surveys put the average between 3,200 and 4,200 percent—or $32 to $42 generated for every dollar spent on email.

It’s not just the potential for return that makes building your list critical. You own the list, which is not something you can say for your list of social media followers. If Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter shut your account down tomorrow, you could still communicate with the people on your email list.

To do so, you typically need a solid email marketing service provider. You can choose from dozens, but we looked at three top contenders to provide a comparison to get you started.

Three Email Service Providers to Consider
We looked at MailChimp, AWeber, and Flodesk. All offer options for growing your list, designing emails, and managing campaigns—including landing pages.

AWeber
This is one of the oldest email marketing services, and it offers a drag-and-drop design template that makes it easy to build visually pleasing newsletters without graphic design skills or a lot of time. It also includes automation, personalization, and reporting features.

The free option supports users with between 0 and 500 subscribers. It includes all the basic email marketing features but doesn’t include advanced options such as split testing.

The price for pro services depends on your subscriber numbers. It starts at $16.15 per month (billed annually) for 0 to 500 subscribers and goes up to $149 per month for 10,001 to 25,000 subscribers.

Mailchimp
This is extremely popular among SMBs that don’t have a lot of time resources to devote to email marketing but still want a professional product. That’s due in part to how easy it is to set up. The Mailchimp name is also well-known, which means if you don’t have your own email domain, emails that show up as coming from Mailchimp proxies won’t usually scare off readers.

You can use Mailchimp free for one audience and up to 2,000 contacts. As with AWeber, you get all the basic email marketing functions but no split testing or other advanced options.

Mailchimp has three paid plans with pricing determined by your contact numbers. Mailchimp’s Standard plan costs $14.99 per month for up to 500 contacts and $499 per month for up to 100,000 contacts with options spread out between those two extremes.

Flodesk
This makes it easy to create polished, pretty emails that resonate with subscribers. It also offers options for creating sign-up and landing pages if you don’t have your own website yet (you know we don’t recommend skipping a website, though!).

While this option isn’t typically as robust as either AWeber or Mailchimp when it comes to reporting, automation, or other business features, it does have a very attractive price point. It’s $39 per month no matter what your subscriber numbers are.

You can try all these email providers for free, so don’t feel like you need to make a decision without a test run. You can also port your subscriber lists from one service to another any time—remember, the benefit of building a list is that you own it!